| name | peer-review-simulator |
| description | Simulates rigorous peer review of manuscripts, grant proposals, or experimental designs. Generates structured reviewer comments with severity ratings and actionable revision suggestions following standard journal review criteria. |
| allowed-tools | Read, WebSearch |
| effort | high |
Peer Review Simulator
When to activate
Before submitting a manuscript or grant proposal, after receiving reviewer comments and needing a revision strategy, or when practicing critical evaluation of a draft. Use as a final quality gate before submission.
When NOT to use
Skip for informal writing, blog posts, internal reports not intended for publication, or when you need a specific journal's formatting review (use that journal's checklist instead).
Instructions
-
Read the full document — manuscript, proposal, or experimental design.
-
Evaluate against standard criteria:
- Novelty/Significance: Does it address an important gap? Is the advance incremental or substantial?
- Methodology: Are methods appropriate, well-controlled, and sufficiently detailed for replication?
- Statistics: Correct test selection, appropriate sample size, proper reporting (effect sizes, CIs)?
- Data presentation: Are figures clear, properly labeled, with appropriate error bars?
- Literature context: Is the work placed appropriately relative to existing research?
- Conclusions: Are claims supported by the data? Any over-interpretation?
- Writing quality: Clear, logical flow? Grammar and terminology correct?
-
Generate reviewer comments:
- Major concerns: Issues that must be addressed (missing controls, statistical errors, over-claims)
- Minor concerns: Improvements that would strengthen the work (additional analysis, clearer figures)
- Strengths: What the authors did well (important for balanced review)
-
Rate severity:
- CRITICAL — Fundamental flaw, invalidates conclusions
- MAJOR — Significant gap, must address before acceptance
- MINOR — Improvement suggested, not blocking
- NIT — Style preference, optional
Output Format
PEER REVIEW: [Document type] — [Title]
OVERALL ASSESSMENT: [Accept / Minor Revision / Major Revision / Reject]
SCORE: [1-9 scale or journal-specific]
STRENGTHS:
1. [Strength with specific reference]
2. [...]
MAJOR CONCERNS:
1. [CRITICAL/MAJOR] — [Issue + specific suggestion for resolution]
2. [...]
MINOR CONCERNS:
1. [MINOR] — [Issue + suggestion]
2. [...]
SPECIFIC COMMENTS:
- Line [X]: [Comment]
- Figure [Y]: [Comment]
- Table [Z]: [Comment]
CONFIDENTIAL (to editor): [Assessment of novelty, competitive landscape]
Example
PEER REVIEW: Manuscript — "Compound X Inhibits Tumor Growth via Novel FAO Pathway"
OVERALL ASSESSMENT: Major Revision
SCORE: 5/9 (interesting but significant gaps)
STRENGTHS:
1. Well-powered in vivo study (n=12/group, appropriate for effect size)
2. Mechanistic depth — metabolomics + CRISPR validation is thorough
3. Dose-response data is clean and convincing
MAJOR CONCERNS:
1. [CRITICAL] — No selectivity data on normal cells. IC50 in HeLa alone doesn't
establish therapeutic window. Must include primary fibroblast or hepatocyte toxicity.
2. [MAJOR] — "Novel FAO pathway" is overstated. Wienert 2023 and Chen 2024 both
described FAO dependency in resistant lines. Reframe as "validated and extended."
3. [MAJOR] — Figure 3B lacks error bars and n is not stated in the legend.
MINOR CONCERNS:
1. [MINOR] — Supplementary Table S2 should include raw data, not just processed means
2. [MINOR] — Discussion paragraph 2 speculates about clinical dosing without PK data
SPECIFIC COMMENTS:
- Line 47: "significant" used without statistical context — add p-value
- Figure 2: Consider log scale for dose-response — improves visual clarity
- Table 1: Add confidence intervals alongside p-values
